When the Search for Truth Becomes Obsolete
Susan Bigelow Reynolds develops an interesting analogy in her contribution to Commonweal’s four-part discussion of Christian Smith’s Why Religion Went Obsolete (“Overlooked Treasure,” June): religion as a vinyl record or cassette tape in a vintage store—“obsolete,” yet occasionally retrieved and loved by a younger generation. But there’s more here than the “thrill of adventure,” or even hope, that Reynolds sees in walking into a vintage store and looking for a cool thing to make her own. That “more” speaks to the question of the consequences of religion going obsolete that Peter Steinfels touches on in his contribution to the discussion.
Commonweal’s reviews of Smith’s book moved me to consider another thing that is going obsolete—another thing involving the hierarchy, truth, and community that Gerardo Martí associates with religion: science.
Martí sees science as “occupy[ing] the space once held by religious explanation and authority.” However, the digital world’s disruption of “attention, authority, and community” that Martí notes regarding religion also influences science. Science is likewise vulnerable to the power of consumer culture that Kaya Oakes focuses on. Climate change, which both Oakes and Steinfels cite, is a simple scientific concept: change the composition of the atmosphere and the atmosphere should behave differently. As Pope Francis pointed out, we can address this situation by changing how we live. If we produce less CO2 today than we did yesterday, we have an immediate (if small) impact. But “less” contradicts consuming. It is easier to deny the simple scientific concept altogether, or to presume the fix will come via technology or the next election.
Of course, science has flaws. Vatican Observatory director Br. Guy Consolmagno, SJ, and I wrote a book on science going wrong (in ways sometimes humorous but sometimes tragic). But science nevertheless has value in ways that even the coolest vintage-store find does not. We have reason to believe it leads us toward truths—indeed, toward singular truths, to use Martí’s terms. It is not the wrong question, pace Oakes, to ask “what will bring people back” to valuing science and the truths it reveals, although that ought not be the only question.
The consequences of science going obsolete seem so obvious that someone saying, “So what?” as was said about religion (Steinfels’s discussion) would be marked a fool. Yet the Pontifical Academy of Science is sufficiently concerned that they put out a statement in June on “Protecting Freedom of Science and Preventing Distortion of Scientific Truth.” Consolmagno was among those who signed it, as were Francis Collins and several Nobel laureates.
Science and religion both seek what is true. Pope John Paul II urged that they need each other. If the one form of looking for truth can go obsolete, how can the other not? (And how fares mathematics in the public eye, by the way?) If truth becomes an obsolete item in a vintage store, something that only an eccentric minority treasures and makes its own, then the consequences will be unpleasant. Indeed, they already are.
Christopher M. Graney
Louisville, Ky.
Fanfare for the Common Man
I applaud Cathleen Kaveny’s “Ordinary People” (July/August). It is a reminder of the quote, “There are no extraordinary people, only ordinary people doing extraordinary things.” Admiral William “Bull” Halsey Jr. honored the men and women who were victorious over fascism and imperialism in World War II: “There are no great men, just challenges which ordinary men out of necessity are forced by circumstances to meet.” Ordinary people are also celebrated in Aaron Copland’s musical piece Fanfare for the Common Man, which debuted during the darkest days of World War II.
John T. Goegel
Canterbury, N.H.
The Next Thing
The thoughtful review by Matt McManus (“On to the Next Thing” July/August) of Steve Paxton’s book discussed some practical ideas about how we might strive for a postcapitalist future. McManus (citing Paxton) mentions “a jobs guarantee, which would both ease economic precarity and increase the bargaining power of labor relative to capital.” McManus also mentions Thomas Piketty’s idea that every citizen should receive “a guaranteed ‘universal capital endowment,’ funded by large tax increases on the wealthy.”
An alternative to these ideas of a jobs guarantee or a capital endowment (in the form of a one-off, lump-sum payment) is the option of a universal basic income (UBI). This model for universal economic security has been the focus of many scholars, activists, and policymakers over the last forty years. One of the key original thinkers behind the contemporary UBI model is Philippe Van Parijs, a Belgian economic philosopher. In his younger days, Van Parijs was associated with the September group of analytic Marxist thinkers, along with G. A. Cohen and John Roemer, to whom McManus refers in his review of Paxton’s book.
UBI would provide a regular (for example, monthly) payment by the state to every individual in an amount sufficient to maintain an adequate material standard of living. UBI is preferable to a jobs guarantee in that it is simpler to administer and avoids potential economic inefficiencies and environmental wastefulness in having to create a paid job for every adult of working age. UBI would also give people the freedom to choose to engage in unpaid work that is necessary and socially valuable (such as caring for family members, artistic creativity, and volunteering in the community) without the fear of economic privation.
UBI as a dependable stream of income over one’s lifetime would be preferable to a one-time grant or capital endowment, because the latter could be frittered away quickly or invested imprudently. UBI would enable each individual to chart their own life course that might include education, career change, or (as Marx would put it) completely opting out of wage slavery under capitalism.
Pope Francis supported the goal of a UBI in his pronouncements and writing. UBI resonates in powerful ways with key principles of Catholic social teaching. On a practical level, there are scores of UBI pilots from around the world (including 136 local, targeted projects in the United States supported by mayors and community organizations) that have demonstrated the feasibility and benefits of the UBI model for economic security.
James Mulvale
Caledon, Ontario
An Unexpected Solace
Thank you for running Richard Tillinghast’s poem titled “My Grandmother Told Me” in the May issue of Commonweal. There’s so much to like, not least that Tillinghast’s word choices make me think the poem would speak as clearly if written in 1850 as today. Then, the end: “[A]nd take the hurt away / from what surrounds us.”
I didn’t see that coming, yet I felt grateful for the solace with which Tillinghast brought me back to the world in which I live.
Joseph Wakelee-Lynch
Playa del Rey, Calif.
